The Design of Future Things Read Online Free Page B

visited Braunschweig to learn more about their work (fascinating stuff, to which I return in chapter 3 ). Riders, it seems, delegate the amount of control they give to the horse: when using “loose reins,” the horse has authority, but under “tight reins,” the rider exerts more control. Skilled riders are in continual negotiation with their horses, adjusting the amount of control they maintain to the circumstances. The American and German scientists are trying to replicate this relationship with human-machine interaction—not only with cars but with houses and appliances.
    Symbiosis , in the sense meant by Licklider half a century ago, is a merger of two components, one human, one machine, where the mix is smooth and fruitful, the resulting collaboration exceeding what either is capable of alone. We need to understand how best to accomplish this interaction, how to make it so natural that training and skill are usually not required.
Skittish Horses, Skittish Machines
    What would it mean for a car and driver to interact much as a skilled rider interacts with a horse? Suppose a car were to balk or act skittish when getting too close to the cars ahead or when driving at a speed it computed to be dangerous? Suppose the car responded smoothly and gracefully to appropriate commands and sluggishly and reluctantly to others? Would it be possible to devise a car whose physical responsiveness communicated the safety status to the driver?
    What about your house? What would it mean to have a skittish house? I can see my vacuum cleaner or stove acting up, wanting to do one thing when I wanted it to do another. But my house? Today companies are poised to transform your home into an automated beast, always looking out for your best interests, providing you with everything you need and desire, even before you know you need or desire it. Many companies are anxious to equip, wire, and control these “smart homes”—homes that control the lighting according to their perception of your moods, that choose what music to play or that direct the television images to move from screen to screen as you wander about the house. All these “smart” and “intelligent” devices pose the question of how we will be able to relate to all this smartness. If we want to learn to ride a horse, we have to practice or, better yet, take lessons. So, do we need to practice how to use our home, to take lessons on getting along with our appliances?
    What if we could devise natural means of interaction between people and machines? Could we learn from the way that skilled riders interact with horses? Perhaps. We would need to determine the appropriate behavioral mappings between thebehaviors and states of the horse and rider and those of the car and driver. How would a car indicate nervousness? What is the equivalent for a car to a horse’s posture or skittishness? If a horse conveys its emotional state by rearing back and tensing its neck, what might the equivalent be for a car? What if suddenly your car reared back, lowering its rear end while raising the front, perhaps moving the front end left and right?
    Natural signals akin to what the horse receives from its rider are actually being explored in research laboratories. Research scientists in the automobile companies are experimenting with measures of emotion and attention, and at least one automobile model sold to the public does have a television camera located on the steering column that watches drivers, deciding whether or not they are paying attention. If the automobile decides that a crash is imminent but the driver is looking elsewhere, it brakes.
    Similarly, scientists are hard at work developing smart homes that monitor the inhabitants, assessing their moods and emotions, and adjusting room temperature, lighting, and background music. I’ve visited several of these experiments and observed the results. At one research facility at a European university,